


The Other Brother

by RadioFriday



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hell Trauma, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Protective Adam Milligan, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Traumatized Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadioFriday/pseuds/RadioFriday
Summary: Sam and Adam are pulled from the cage at the same time. Sam is not right, and Adam, stuck as his caretaker, is not pleased  Basically, Adam really, really doesn't want to care and holds onto his resentment for dear life, but Sam is all psychotic and hopeless so it's kind of hard. Cue grudging compassion and Adam dragging Sam around the country, hitchhiking with truckers and stuff while trying to keep Sam's lunacy on the down-low, in search of anyone else who wants to take him, anyone at all. When he finally gets his chance to be rid of Sam for good and for keeps, he barely has one foot out the door before he notices Dean/Bobby/the psychiatric nurse/whoever trying to calm Sam down and doing it all wrong.Breaking up is so hard to do
Relationships: Adam Milligan & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 78





	The Other Brother

**Author's Note:**

> This was previously published on ye olde Livejournal (kettle-o-fish) based on an OhSam prompt and republished here with minor tweaks.

They come back wrong.

They crawl out of that hole in Kansas and Adam is pissed. Adam is beyond pissed. Adam is still pissed as they find themselves on the side of a corn-lined highway in the middle of Iowa after Sam yet again failed to not be a crazy, unsettling freak.

“There’s something wrong in his head.” The driver was a skinny guy, all sharp bones, leather skin, and whiskers. He whistled whenever a word started with an “S”-sound, like Sam or shit or sometimes-I-just-want-to-leave-you-in-the-middle-of-a-field-somewhere-you-sad-fucking-psycho

“Dammit, Sam!” Adam throws their bag down on the cracked asphalt. He doesn’t whistle when he says Sam. He growls at the sky and balls his hands into fists and uses all of his willpower in the fight to avoid using them, “You’re supposed to be quiet. Remember? Remember when we talked about that?”

Sam sits on the gravelly shoulder, draws his knees up, and shakes his head, mumbling into his kneecaps.

“Of course not.” Adam mutters and flops down next to him, rubs his temples, “I’m gonna start gagging you, I swear to  _ God.” _

Sam shakes his head, but doesn’t look up, “I’m sorry I don’t...I’m cold.”

Sam is always cold. Adam is 99% sure it's some psychosomatic shit related to the Cage, but that doesn’t change the fact that Sam is clearly shivering in the summer heat, even under several layers of flannel. Adam digs in their shared duffle for yet another shirt and hands it to Sam who stares at it like he doesn’t recognize what it is until Adam takes it and drapes it over his shoulders. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispers again.

Adam shoots him a sideways glance, “Yeah, you should be. Carting your crazy ass all over the country looking for your idiot brother isn’t exactly easy when you freak people out.”

“My brother?” Sam nods absently.

“Dean. Remember Dean? We’re gonna find Dean. Because you’re _ his  _ problem. Not mine. I didn’t sign up for any of this shit.”

“Dean’s my brother.”

“Yup. Big, overprotective, massively co-dependent, alpha-male, brother. He’ll be glad to have you.”

Sam plucks a wispy, cottony dandelion blossom out of the weeds along the side of the road and cradles it in his big hands.

“You’re not gonna cry, are you? Because that’s like the last thing I feel like dealing with right now.”

Sam pinches the delicate seeds and pulls them off of their stem. The soft tufts stick to his fingers and he frowns. Adam reaches over and grabs the remnant of the dandelion, says, “You’re doing it wrong. Watch,” and blows, lifting the seeds skyward with his breath.

Sam fingers one of the seeds when it lands on Adam’s knee, “I scattered too. I wouldn’t let them wake you up.”

He smiles.

***

Adam doesn’t remember Hell. He’s pretty sure it’s Sam’s fault. He’s pretty sure that’s why he came back functional and Sam came back all screwed up.

Sam, conversely, doesn’t remember anything from before Hell. Not really. He says Dean’s name like it’s divine, but he can’t really articulate why, but then they’ll be at some random diner in the middle of bumfuck Nebraska and he’ll get irrationally delighted about how great the chicken salad is; they ate here once before and Dean got the blackberry pie with ice cream…

…and then he gets stuck, like one of those video game glitches where your avatar gets jammed between two walls or something. You can see it in his face, how he just _ stops.  _ He wants to move forward. It’s in his code. But the code is corrupted.

Adam snaps his fingers in front of Sam’s face and says, “Hey, c’mon, snap out of it.”

Sometimes it takes a little while and sometimes it’s almost instantaneous, but Sam blinks and his head bobs a little and he says something completely crazy, like, “Lost in the parts...the Chrysler building. I got him.”

Adam tries to figure out where Dean could have gone. He assumes Dean is alive-- just a feeling he has. He thinks Sam-- even this scrambled, scarred version of Sam-- would know if Dean was dead. He thinks that who or whatever brought them back would have known not to bother if Dean Winchester was dead. 

It would have been helpful if whatever did it had considered resurrecting them within the same zip code as Dean though.  _ Seriously _ . 

Adam doesn’t really know the first thing about tracking down a guy who has largely turned being an untraceable off-the-grid loner into an artform, and Sam is less than useful, but Adam is still a Winchester and Adam is smart. 

So they hit towns that sound like they might have some spooky Winchester shit going down. Sometimes they just miss someone who fits Dean’s description, some scruffy creep or some mysterious hottie depending on who they talk to. Sometimes Sam lingers in the dim, smelly halls of whatever dumpy hotel they’ve scraped enough money together to get a room in and tilts his head like he’s listening to something, smiles, says “Almost home.”

Adam forgets that Sam saved the world because Sam’s just so damn pathetic and helpless, reduced to tears by bacon or burnt toast or dogs, crows, or chain-link fence. Then Sam does something that reminds Adam that deep down under all the scar tissue, there’s a dangerous and fiercely protective impulse. They get mugged while waiting for a bus in Tucson. The guy pulls a small knife on Adam, demands his wallet, and Sam is like a whirlwind, shoving Adam aside and taking the guy out. Sam doesn’t acknowledge the small cut across his forearm, turning on Adam and forcing him into the small bus shelter. He covers him with his body, like a human shield, and Adam shoves him with a grunt and a “Get off me!”

Sam just kinda stands there like a lost puppy and Adam reaches for his injured arm. “Let me see that.”

Sam sees the blood and pales and it's back to the human shield routine. He clamps his palm over Adam’s eyes and murmurs, “If you don’t see it, it doesn’t happen. That was the deal.”

Adam really hates when his psycho hell-scarred half-brother makes sense.

***

The worst days actually aren’t the ones where Sam starts ranting about the spiders that live in his brain but the ones when he’s clearly lost, quietly horrified by everything, yes, even complimentary bottles of shampoo. These are the days when Sam’s silence is unnerving. At least when he’s spewing nonsense, Adam can pretend that Sam isn’t completely dependent on him. He can fantasize about dropping him off at a nice, comfy psych ward without feeling guilty about it.

Despite the fact that Adam regularly wants nothing more than for Sam to shut up when they’re trying to hitchhike or splurging for a cramped seat on a Greyhound bus, this Sam drags his fingernails down his arms and pulls at his hair until blood beads on his scalp. He sobs silently-- which is just freaky-- and people sense a different kind of danger with this Sam. It’s easier to ignore the clearly unstable guy spouting nonsense. It’s harder to ignore a man in some kind of indescribable pain. 

When this happens, Adam guides Sam back into the bed and talks at him, mostly bemoaning the fact that he’ll have to figure out how to pay for another day in this dump “because you’re having some kind of meltdown.”

Adam talks himself hoarse and tells himself that it's only because he has no one else to talk to and Sam is a moron who needs to understand that semi-catatonia is not a good way to go through life, in fact, it’s pretty damn inconvenient.

It has nothing to do with the way awareness slowly comes back to Sam’s eyes, like he’s following Adam’s voice, like it’s some kind of siren song. 

Seriously. 

All the fucks Adam would give are still in Hell with the rest of Sam’s sanity.

***

Adam notices the old guy watching them from across the diner. Sam is ripping his toast into tiny crumbs, oblivious. The guy is sitting at the counter, dark skinned and grizzled, but scary alert, taking the whole dining room in without even trying. He makes Adam think of John Winchester, makes him think HUNTER in big, bold letters across the inside of his skull. They’ve been trying to avoid run-ins with hunters, what with that whole resurrected-from-the-grave thing.

Adam shoves the last forkful of egg into his mouth and says between chews, “You done pretending to eat that?”

Sam just squints at him. Adam hastily wipes Sam’s buttery fingers and hauls him out of the booth. He throws a few crumpled bills on the table and pushes Sam forward, poking him low in the back to keep him moving. The hunter at the counter watches out of the corners of his eyes.

“Shit.” Adam mutters under his breath. Sam stumbles on the steps leaving the diner and Adam barely catches him with a “Watch where you’re going, doofus.”

Adam keeps glancing behind them on the walk back to the motel room. He bolts the door and unlocks the safe near the bathroom, pulls out a gleaming silver Taurus. They came back with what they had been carrying. He keeps Sam’s knife in his boot. He doesn’t like to carry Sam’s gun. Sam himself isn’t allowed to touch the weapons because he’s like a crazy person and Adam doesn’t feel like getting his head blown off while he sleeps. It’s the one rule that Sam is usually pretty good about adhering to. Adam has a theory about that, but he makes a point not to think about it because it makes his chest hurt.

And besides, as Tucson proved, Sam can be plenty dangerous without weapons anyway.

“Did you recognize that guy?” Adam asks.

Sam shakes his head, “Blue label. Never red.”

“That’s a big help, Sam, thanks.”

Sam nods to himself, “Blue.”

Adam has dinner delivered. Sam is agitated from being locked up all day and doesn’t eat it. He’s curled up in the corner when there’s a knock at the door and Adam answers with the Taurus tucked in the band of his jeans. It’s the guy from the diner. Adam only cracks the door enough to peer out. He doesn’t undo the chain.

“Can I help you?”

“That’s what I’m wonderin’ myself.”

“Look.” Adam sighs, “I don’t know who you think we are but we’re not them, okay?”

It sounded better in his head, okay?

The old guy nods, smiles bitterly, “Okay then, how come you have this place locked down like Fort Knox?”

“The neighborhood looks a little sketchy.”

“Not as sketchy as Sam Winchester looks walkin’ around alive and well a couple months after we buried him.”

Adam swallows, shoots Sam a look. Sam is doing his crazypants routine, with the rambling and the scratching. Adam resists the urge to go over and pull his hands away from his face, instead, snaps, “Hey, stop with the scratching.”

“The spiders…”

“Always with the spiders.” Adam mumbles, turns to the crack in the door, “Look. I have no idea who you are. I promise we’re not like, demons, or anything. So, if this little chat could end with you _ not _ shooting us, that would be really great.”

“Well,” The guy scratches thoughtfully at his temple with a silver knife, “That’s gonna depend on the outcome of a few tests I’d like to run, but if you aren’t what you say you aren’t, then I’m sure you’ll pass with flying colors.”

Adam stares for a moment, then nods curtly and unhooks the chain from the door, “I’m…uh…Adam. Adam Milligan.”

“Rufus Taylor.” The guy from the diner grunts, “Sam knows me.”

“Yeah, probably not.” Adam follows Rufus into the room. Sam is trying his hardest to disappear into the water stained wall. His face is hidden by his palms and Rufus kneels, reaches for his wrists. Adam snags Rufus’ arm in his and jumps back when Rufus turns on him with a glare. He holds his palms up, placating, “He doesn’t like when people grab his wrists. Trust me. I just saved you a lot of screaming and crying and freaking out. You should thank me.”

Rufus narrows his eyes and turns back to Sam who is still going on about the spiders, but starting to pull away from the wall, starting to peer carefully between his fingers, “Adam?” he whispers, spots Rufus and, eyes wide, whispers, “Blue label.” 

Adam ignores him, but slides forward, hovering over Rufus in case he does something completely stupid that’s going to send Sam into a meltdown. He asks, “So, in the event you decide to go with the not-shooting us option, would you happen to know where to find our dear older brother?”

***

It takes two days to reach Sioux Falls. Rufus pulls over a lot because Sam starts to freak around the three hour mark, needs to get out and lay in the grass along the side of the highway or something. Adam rolls his eyes and takes a leak and says, “You know, the faster we get to Bobby’s, the faster you get to see Dean.”

“My brother, Dean.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re my brother.”

“Yeah, but Dean’s the one that actually likes you. So we’re gonna drop you off there and you can have a nice life and I’m gonna change my name and hopefully never see either of you again.”

They pull into Bobby’s as the sun is going down. Dean is waiting on the porch, then jogging out to meet Rufus’ truck before they’ve even got the thing in park. He asks, “Is it really them?” and Rufus nods, mutters, "You never told me about your other brother,” but Dean is already not listening. He’s got Adam in a tight hug, and it’s all “Thank God, thank God” and he’s got his arms around Sam, squeezing so tight.

Too tight.

Sam yelps and pushes himself away and Dean is seriously going to make him freak out if he doesn’t stop with the grabbing and the “Sammys.” Sam is on his ass in the dust, pressing his palms into his eyes and shaking his head.

Adam rolls his eyes, shoves Dean aside and says, “You can’t hold on too tight. It upsets him. And then you have a real clusterfuck on your hands. Watch and learn.”

Adam inches along the ground toward Sam, pressed tight against the back wheel of Rufus’ truck. The palms pressed to his eyes are starting to turn into clawed fingers digging crescents into the skin around his eyes. Adam reaches out and paws at Sam’s long fingers, “Hey. Stop being a pain in the ass. We found Dean. Remember how we were gonna find Dean?”

Sam shakes his head.

“Yeah, you do. Think about it.”

Sam shakes his head again, “If you don’t think about it, it’s not happening.”

“Sam.” Adam knows he sounds like he’s pleading with the head case, and maybe he is, but he’s so close, so so so close to being _ done _ with this shit that he can taste it. He shoots Dean a look, Dean, who looks stricken and panicked, gnawing on his bottom lip, “Come here.”

Dean crawls forward and Adam takes his hands, places them over Sam’s, “No sudden movements.” He snorts, despite himself, “Just talk to him. He’ll figure it out.” He steps back and crosses his arms and mouths, “GO ON,” when Dean looks at him like an idiot.

“Sam?”

Sam shudders and says, “Kiss and burn. Kiss and burn.”

“Yeah, Sammy? That’s interesting.” His voice is high and tight, his tone placating and slightly insincere.

“He’s not a fucking five-year-old.” Adam huffs.

Dean glares over his shoulder, then turns back to Sam, “Are you in there, Sammy?” It’s closer to Dean’s normal register.

“The pieces got lost.”

“It’s okay.” Dean rubs the back of Sam’s head, “We’ll find them.”

Sam nods and his hands move, incrementally, away from his face, “Spiders that carried the faces away.”

“Yeah, the spiders in the brain thing tends to come up a lot. Have fun with that.”

“You’re kind’ve an asshole, you know that?” Dean winces to his feet and carefully pulls Sam up, mindful not to go too fast or touch too much or touch the places Sam can’t stand to be touched.

Adam grabs their bag from the back of the truck and follows behind; Sam is shuffling like he isn’t sure about this at all but this is okay. This will work. This is Adam’s out. He can almost taste the freedom.

Up front, Bobby says, “Ya’ll stayin’ for supper? I made stew.”

“Sam doesn’t eat meat.” Adam grumbles.

Dean glares over his shoulder and moves a hand to the small of Sam’s back.

Rufus leaves after dinner. Sam is warming up to Dean, keeps looking at him like he glows, nudges his shoulder at the table. Bobby throws one of those steamable bags of vegetables in the microwave and Sam picks at the carrots and cauliflower, occasionally slipping a sprout into his mouth.

Adam delivers the speech he has been rehearsing since they woke up in the middle of Stull Cemetery: no, he doesn’t know who raised them; no, no one has contacted them; no, he doesn’t remember anything from the Cage, but he’s pretty sure Sam does.

“He says, sometimes, that he wouldn’t let them wake me up, that, um, if I didn’t see it, then it didn’t happen.”

Sam supplements Adam’s retelling with, “I covered the pieces with skin so the light doesn’t shine on the bones.”

Adam smiles ruefully into his coffee mug, “He’s a barrel of laughs, this one.”

He’s leaving in the morning, he says. What is he going to do? Dean wants to know, frets like a parent and nods in defeat when Adam says he doesn’t know, he just doesn’t want to be a part of this anymore.

“I babysat Little Sammy Psychopath long enough. He’s all yours.”

“You know, from the sound of things, I’d wager that Sammy got this way protecting your ass. Maybe you could show a little gratitude or something.” There’s a tinge of bitterness in Dean’s voice. It makes Sam frown and furrow his brow.

“Hey, maybe if your Dad kept his thing in his pants Sam wouldn’t have had to be a big damn hero.I didn’t ask for this.”

“You leave my dad out of this!”

“He’s my dad too and I can drag him into whatever the fuck I want.”

Sam is shaking his head slowly. He clumsily slides his chair out from beneath the table and runs his hands along the wall, around the corner into the living room. Dean and Adam are still arguing when he shuffles back in, something small clenched in his hand. He sets it on the table and shoves it toward Dean, pressing hard enough to scrape the wood with the small, metal points. His face is still scrunched up when he says, low and quick and quietly, “Dean.”

He moves his hand and Dean’s eyes go wide when the light above the table catches off of the small pendant, “Dean.” 

Dean knows he’s been carrying that guilt in his gut for awhile now, has grown to ignore it except for when he’s in the mood for a little self-flagellation. Now, that guilt is cold and painful and heavy. It takes his breath away, “Where did you get that?”

“He always had it.” Adam says, simply, “We woke up with whatever was on us before we fell.”

Dean presses his lips together and nods. Sam’s face opens up a bit and he says “God in the warm.”

Sam rests his head on the gouged wood of Bobby’s kitchen table. He doesn’t move until Adam and Dean each take a side and gently ease him up the stairs, into the room Dean and Sam shared when they were kids. Adam can tell which side was Sam’s and which side was Dean’s just by looking at the shit on the walls and a small part of him is jealous that they had their father, their mission, and each other, so readily at hand.

Adam swallows, watches Dean ease Sam into sweats, gently smooth his hair back, pull the blankets up to Sam’s waist. Sam stares at a random spot on the wall and Dean stares at Sam.The tears are starting up, soaking the pillow beneath Sam’s as he silently sobs. Dean is careful not to touch, but kneels beside the bed and begins to talk softly. Adam can’t make his words out, but still feels like he’s intruding.

Adam carefully considers his words, “I always wanted brothers.”

“That’s nice.” Dean says absently.

“You should keep talking to him.”

“What?”

“When he’s like this.” Adam nods, “It’s like…it’s like he gets lost. I’ve been trying to figure out what triggers it…but…talking..talking helps.”

Dean doesn’t say anything. He just nods.

Adam continues. Sam’s lifeless looking eyes are boring a hole into the wall near his head and Adam just wants to make them stop…except it’s not his problem. It’s so not his problem anymore,, “I’m sorry he came back…wrong. I’m sorry it…I’m sorry it wasn’t me and I’m sorry you don’t get to have your little brother back.”

Dean seems to physically absorb the words, roll them around in his head, before responding, carefully, “Yeah. Me too.”

“Yeah.” Adam nods, taps his fingers on the doorframe anxiously, “Yeah. So. I’m gonna go. Like I said…the talking thing, uh, helps.”

Adam awkwardly crosses the room and kneels beside Sam’s bed, close enough to Dean that their knees touch, “Bye Sam. Be good for Dean. No crazytalk in public, okay?”

And Adam refuses to cry. He’s not crying. He’s  _ not. _

He’s halfway down the hall when Dean’s voice echoes off the narrow upstairs corridor, “Hey Adam,” he hangs out the door, “You know…I have  _ two _ little brothers. And they’re both, like, these  _ massive  _ pains in my ass.”

Adam stops near the steps angrily wipes his face before he turns, “Yeah, I don’t do that blind blood-loyalty thing you two seem to have going on. I’m not selling my soul for anyone.”

“No one’s asking you to.”

“No one asked me the last time I got mixed up in your crazy shit either.”

“Well they should’ve.”

Adam can’t argue with that. He shrugs, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, “Are you asking me if I’m willing to stay here and make sure you don’t kill Sam with your incompetence?”

Dean grins and feigns hurt, “Man, fuck you. I was changing that kid’s diapers when you were still living in my Daddy’s balls.”

“God, please stop talking.”

“I probably woulda ended up changing _ your _ shitty pants too if—“

“Enough! Oh my God, you’re a freak. I can’t believe we come from the same genetic stock.”

Dean laughs heartily, glances back in the room at Sam, still staring away at the point on the wall, just above his 1996 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar. He’s instantly sobered. “So…you wanna show me the secret to getting Cinderella here up.”

“You mean Sleeping Beauty?”

“Whatever. Don’t you start taking after him. I don’t think I can handle bitchface in stereo.”

Adam rolls his eyes and slinks back into the room. He flops down on Sam’s bed, pleased when Sam gasps a little at the disruption, red-rimmed hazel eyes fluttering with vague confusion, “Hey bro, change of plans…”

  
  



End file.
